![]() ![]() For a propane tank, the formula is degree days since the last delivery divided by the number of gallons delivered. If the car goes 300 miles between fill-ups and you need 15 gallons to fill up, you got 20 mpg since the last tank. You calculate k-factor the same way you figure mpg for your vehicle. As long as none of those things change, k-factor is a reliable number to use for forecasting. It depends on insulation levels, energy efficiency, house size, propane tank maintenance, and even how many people are showering and for how long. If we go back to our example day with an average temp of 40 degrees, the house will burn five gallons of fuel that day. You can then divide that number into degree days to calculate usage for a specific date. If a customer’s k-factor is five, that house will get five degree days per gallon. You are calculating the number of degree days per gallon of propane or how many degree days one gallon of propane will last. You can think of it as similar to miles per gallon for a car. The higher the number, the less fuel burned each day. The lower the number, the more fuel burned each day. Understanding K-FactorĪt its core, k-factor is a number that lets you know how fast a customer uses propane. This can be used as a backward measure to figure how many heating degree days the past month had or as a predictive measure using historical highs and lows. That number is then subtracted from 65 to give you the heating degree days.įor example, if the day’s average temperature is 40 degrees, it has 25 heating degree days. To calculate the degree day, you first get the average of the day’s high and low temperatures. The standard temperature for measuring a degree day is 65 degrees Fahrenheit, chosen because it tends to be the point at which people begin considering turning their heaters on. More energy tends to be used the lower the temperature drops. Knowing the range of outdoor temperatures is a reasonable measure for calculating heating energy demand. ![]() A degree day is a way of measuring how cold or warm a location is, and the more extreme the weather, the higher the number of degree days. The first number you need to figure out is the heating degree days in your area. Let’s take a look at two numbers to help forecast when propane tank service is needed. ![]() Once you have the formula in place, scheduling your drivers for delivery becomes more efficient. The more information you have about your customers’ historical propane use, the easier it will be to develop a reliable formula for deliveries. Predicting when those tanks will need more gas comes down to some simple math related to how much propane a specific customer uses. Here’s a handy cheat sheet showing you total number of gallons remaining based on your tank size and current gauge level.With more than 50 million American homes using propane, there are a lot of propane tanks out there that need to be filled and ready for use. Want to know the fill capacity of your propane tank? Multiply the tank’s total capacity by 0.8. So the extra space in the tank is a cushion against the pressure that builds up in a tank when it’s hot. It’s the same amount of propane, but it’s taking up more space. That means a tank that is 80% full on a mild March day, might register as 85-percent (or higher) at the mid-July cook out. To allow for this expansion, propane containers are filled to only 80% of their capacity. Propane, however, will increase in volume nearly 17 times greater than water over the same temperature increase. Propane, like water, will expand when heat is added to it. The 80% fill rule is a preventative safety measure against the fluctuations that happen inside a tank. So why aren’t propane tanks ever filled up all the way? That has to do with the 80% fill rule. How many gallons of propane are in a 120-gallon tank? Some of you may recognize this as a trick question.
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